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Hello Copeland Photography Tips

I get a lot of questions about how I edit my photos, what kind of lens I use and what kind of camera I have so I figured it would be a great post for anyone else who is interested! I am by no means AT ALL a professional photographer. I'm completely self taught and just do it as a hobby. So let's get into it and start with my camera and lens and then move through to editing.

Camera

I use a Canon Rebel T2i. I've had it for about 4 years now and I'm definitely wanting to upgrade but cameras are $$$ so this camera has been great so far and will be until I can save enough for a new one. The Canon Rebel T2i is a great beginners camera!

Lenses

50mm f/1.8. This is my main lens that I shoot with. For around $100 it's a great starting lens. It has worked well for what I need and I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for sharper portrait images.

24mm f/2.8. I recently purchased the 24mm f/2.8 mainly for indoor photography of Copeland and to take on vacations because its a wide angle lens and very sharp as well! Plus it's what is called a pancake lens. It's very lightweight and small which is great for hauling around on vacations :)

Settings

Camera settings are still kinda tricky for me but I'm kinda getting the hang of it. I always used to shoot in manual mode/no flash because it was comfortable and I never ever EVER use a flash. Ever. I just edit the lighting in Photoshop later. I really don't like the look of flashes used in photos. I highly recommend using natural light whenever possible. The best times to shoot are early in the morning or right before sunset in the evenings. Our bedroom also has pretty good light throughout the day, so if you have an area of your home that has a big window and lots of natural light you shouldn't have a problem shooting at anytime during the day. I usually will shoot in with M or AV mode.

So just a little basics on settings.

Shutter Speed: Again I'm not a professional so what I'm about to say I'm sure professional photographers will be like... just no. Haha but this is what I've learned from googling and trial and error. When I'm outside in harsh sunlight I set my shutter speed to a high number like 1/1600 and then will adjust my f/stop. When I'm shooting inside I like my shutter speed at about 1/80 and my ISO at 400. But honestly it all depends on the lighting in the room at the time.

So here is a little collage of the different shutter speeds and ISO. The f/stop stayed at 2.8. These are photos taken straight out of the camera, meaning no post editing has been done to them. I personally like the first two the best because I can then lighten them a bit in Photoshop. If I didn't want to do any editing, I like the last one with the shutter speed at 1/160 and an ISO of 800. The other 3 photos are very blown out and over exposed in my opinion. (Photos taken with my 24mm lens)

F/Stop (aperture): A low f/stop will have less in focus. A high f/stop will have more in focus. So if you lower the f/stop number you will have less of the image in focus like in the first photo. The main focus is the cute little hand sanitizer while the background is nice and blurry. When you raise the f/stop, more of the image will be in focus like in the second picture. Everything is pretty much focused in. (Photos taken with my 24mm lens)

Editing

Photoshop Elements 7. My husband bought me Photoshop years ago when we first got married. It took me a while to learn but it was totally worth it! The only editing I do in Photoshop is lighting and contrast. Just to make the pictures brighter and more clear. I never alter my body or anything crazy like that. I will however remove certain things from images. Let's say there is a big ugly light pole right in middle of the shot, I will go ahead and remove the light pole to make a cleaner looking picture using the clone stamp.

For example, this picture I took from last summer. I would never remove something so dramatic but to just show what can be done in Photoshop (obviously I'm not very good and it's far from perfect, but even at entry level you can do quite a bit of editing if you wanted to take the time). You can remove unwanted people and objects from your photos to get it just right!

With these two examples you can see where shutter speed, ISO and f/stop have a lot to do with how much editing takes place. In the first example it is very dark so more editing had to happen in order for me to get a brighter picture. In the second example, I didn't need to make many changes because I had the right settings for the lighting.

iPhone Photography

I just have an old iphone that we bought on eBay, so I'll let you guess just how good of shape its in haha. We are finally upgrading this summer! But When i do use my phone for photography, which let's face it, is like 90% of the time I like to edit the pictures to make them bright and sharp and clear! I love looking at happy and bright photos on my feed so I just assume other people also like to see bright and cheerful pictures :)

So after I take a picture I will edit the photo in PSexpress. It's the Adobe Photoshop app and it's AMAZING you guys. Seriously the best and the only editing app I use. It make everything bright, clear and sharp just by adjusting the simple settings.

I also will occasionally use the VSCO app. I like to call it the moody app because the settings make a picture very moody.

It's fun to play around and try different edits so have fun with them! Anyway, that's all! I hope these little tips helped :)